Barrage action:
Make a Ranged (Light/Heavy) or Gunnery check; difficulty = targeted enemy's Discipline. Any successes indicate that the enemy is suppressed. Suppressed characters must move into the nearest cover as their next manoeuvre. Attacks and Coercion attempts made by a suppressed enemy suffer a number of Setback dice equal to your ranks in Barrage.

* Barrage may not be used against a minion group unless the weapon has the Autofire or Blast special ability.
* You may not take a Barrage action if you do not have a readied, ranged weapon.

The easiest solution that still makes Barrage useful without overpowering it is that Barrage provides Disorient x (x = Barrage rank) to any of the character's personal scale ranged attacks (regardless of range). Disorient still has to be activated normally (with 2 Advantages or a Triumph).

This represents the character's salvo rattling the target. It effectively adds a debuff to his ranged attacks that can stack in duration with other attaks that have Disorient.

Being Disoriented from a Barrage several rounds ago seems unusual, especially when a combat round can represent up to 1 minute of in-game time.

I don't know who said it earlier, but exchanging the Barrage talent for Rapid Reaction all across the Bodyguard tree strikes me as making the most sense, particularly since Bodyguards don't get Cool.

That, or you could pick up Assassin or Big-Game Hunter for Stealth/Stalker and take on sniping missions

I don't know who said it earlier, but exchanging the Barrage talent for Rapid Reaction all across the Bodyguard tree strikes me as making the most sense, particularly since Bodyguards don't get Cool.

That was me. I think it works as a fix, but I was hoping to salvage Barrage. Not that I really need to do so. Rapid Reaction as a substitute does sound very fitting (and attractive to my Bodyguard player).

EDIT: My only concern would be that Bodyguard already has too many Talents that cost Strain and doesn't have a whole lot that adds to ST or improves Strain recovery.

EDIT: My only concern would be that Bodyguard already has too many Talents that cost Strain and doesn't have a whole lot that adds to ST or improves Strain recovery.

Fair point, but if the character in question is also a Hired Gun they'll have Discipline as a career skill, so they'll be able to recover strain between encounters fairly easily. They'll also easily be able to access the Mercenary Soldier tree in order to get Second Wind, if need be.

From experience the only character i've seem get any mileage out of barrage, had a jet pack and flew about as far away as possible.

From experience the only character i've seem get any mileage out of barrage, had a jet pack and flew about as far away as possible.

Not very bodyguard-like, that.

In any case, I've discussed this issue with my Bodyguard player, and we decided to replace the first two Barrage ranks -- the 5-point and 10-point ranks -- with Second Wind, whereas the last Barrage rank -- the 25-point one -- is now Rapid Reactions. This makes the Bodyguard better equipped to shrug off the effects of his many strain-draining talents, and it also gives him a way to overcome the fact that he don't get Cool as a skill when it comes time for Initiative. My player likes it a lot more than Barrage, and I don't see it as disrupting the game too much.

I like the idea of making it a "Suppressive Fire" talent. Adding setbacks to a target seems like the tidiest way to represent that. Another possibility would be adding Knockdown to targets who aren't in cover. It would be nice to make it force a fear check, but I don't know if I like having a single action require two or more checks by different parties, especially if the action is going to be repeated round after round.

To limit how often it pops, I'd probably attach it to the weapon qualities that hit multiple times in a turn (Auto-Fire, Blast, and two-weapon ranged attacks).

I'm about to start playing a Noghri bodyguard and trying to figure out some way to make this more attractive. Did anyone test either the "generate Advantage for auto fire" or "suppressing fire" type changes? Rapid Reaction wouldn't be bad, I do agree that Bodyguard already has a lot of Strain-generating stuff as it is.